Science
Careers spoke with Isabelle Vernos, chairwoman
of the ERC
Scientific Council's Working Group on Gender Balance and research professor at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, Spain, about the funding agency's efforts to bolster the
prospects of female applicants.
But the real dearth — the lack
of clear pathways into
careers that could enable today's generation
of gifted young Americans to become the researchers who make tomorrow's great discoveries — is convincing more and more
of the nation's best students not to seek
careers in fields such as law, finance, medicine and other fields that offer much better short - and long - term
career prospects instead
of dedicating an average
of seven years to PhD study plus an additional five years or more
of postdoctoral training now considered necessary to compete for an academic
career in many
scientific fields.